By Julie Rasco
RMG Networks
 

Isaac Newton once said, “We build too many walls and not enough bridges.” Nowhere is that truer than in corporate environments.

Departments often operate in silos, even in small companies. From different procedures and policies to different software and working hours, organizational silos are part of today’s working culture. The problem with silos is when customers notice. A seamless transition between departments is a critical part of the customer experience.

One area where silos can impact customers is from back-of-house to front-of-house operations. Hotels, convention centers and large corporate campuses have to update their meeting room signage daily to make sure guests know where they are supposed to go. Imagine if this signage was not only automated, but the signs themselves were intelligent enough that a guest could walk up to one and search on it to see where they are supposed to be not only today, but also tomorrow?

This smooth flow of information doesn’t just impact external customers, but has implications for internal communications as well.  Have you ever scheduled a meeting room and found that when your meeting was supposed to start, another group was already there? Or, how about when you’re in the middle of an important presentation and there is a technical glitch and no IT person to be found? An intelligent door display would solve both of these issues by showing who had reserved the room and offering an audio dialing option for room help (more coffee needed STAT!).  

The new era of digital door displays is the perfect bridge for a seamless - internal and external - customer experience. With display sizes up to 21”, you don’t have to pull out your glasses to view the messages, and power over Ethernet designs make for easy installations that don’t require expensive electrical upgrades.

Where am I going? How do I get there? What’s going on today? To find the answers to these questions, today’s cutting-edge companies don’t rely exclusively on concierges, static displays or receptionists – they use the latest in digital door display signage!

Ben Johnston
RMG Networks

Meet our fictious friend, Samantha. Samantha works in the People and Culture Department (formerly known as HR) of a mid-sized financial services company.

Meet Samantha

On any given day, Samantha and her department colleagues have a lot of information to share with the company's employees. They frantically spend much of their time organizing that information into emails, handouts, and meeting agendas in order to educate the employees on a wide range of subjects. But the problem is that the employees are very busy and distracted, and their calendars are full and their in-boxes overflowing with emails - many of the messages don't even get read or absorbed. And, these are important company messages that could help the employees be more productive!

One day, Samantha goes to a happy hour with her local metro-area "People and Culture Professionals" group to socialize and learn about trends others are using in employee communications. Over drinks, she shares her problem with the group. Then she hears Brian, a colleague from another company, talk about a great solution he has found called Digital Signage.

Brian explains to Samantha that he realized the employees at his company like looking at the TV screens in the break rooms, the lobbies and the conference rooms, which the company used to just play the news. Brian says he realized the TVs would be a great way to reach busy employees instead of clogging up email boxes and holding more meetings. He then tells her he found a company that showed him how to put his important People and Culture messages, company performance data, and even real-time production information up on the screens. They even showed him how to bring in sports, news and weather to keep viewers engaged. As a bonus, it turns out that publishing annoucements on the TVs is really easy to do, as simple as writing an email and dragging in an image in many cases.

Brian's company still uses email for some annoucements and hasn't eliminated the need for meetings yet, but his department's email volume is down and from surveying his employees, he knows their awareness of company events and their engagement with the company's goals has increased. Brian is happy with the results.

Samantha buys Brian a drink and asks him to tell her more. She thinks she just might have found a solution to some of her problems.

Submitted by Ashley Ropar
Marketing Manager
Industry Weapon

For that matter, nobody's reading those occasional emails, either.
Or the quickly-scribbled reminders on the whiteboard in the lounge. Yet those haphazard attempts at corporate communication aren't uncommon. In a fast-paced work environment, companies find it difficult to maintain strong communication amongst employees. There's always something new to report and there's no way to get that information out instantaneously. At least without digital signage.

It seems pretty obvious, right?
A digital platform allows you to constantly distribute accurate, useful information to each and every member of your team. More exciting and advanced than traditional fliers and emails - let's not even touch on the whiteboard - digital signage demands attention, meaning your message will be received, not ignored.

On Average, an employee receives 304 business emails per week. Lost within that overstuffed inbox important internal emails simply cannot get the attention they need. Trying to sift through emails is exhausting and a waste of employee time: In Fact, 10 IQ points are lost while constantly fielding emails, which is the same effect as losing and entire night of sleep. That guy's going to have some trouble focusing today.

Constantly struggling to convey the latest meeting and event times, as well as their dates and locations?
Relay that information on you digital screens, alerting employees and allowing them to organize their schedules accordingly. No longer will employees be uninformed about where to be and when, juggling layers of information jumbled up within dozens of emails.

Digital signage also serves as a motivational tool for employees to stay on-task.
Display the latest sales numbers and approaching deadlines to remind everyone of their responsibilities as well as the company's overarching goals. Recognize employees who have gone above and beyond by reporting their achievements, announce upcoming events and milestones, and share media coverage.

Internal digital signage is targeted specifically for your employees.
Broadcast it in lounges or breakrooms, hallways, conference areas, cafeterias - any place that employees typically visit at least once a day. External signage, such as media displayed in office lobbies can act as a PR tool. Visitors can view content customized for public consumption, such as image-enhancing company news, employee and company achievements and messages from business executives.

Incorporating digital signage into your office space carries across-the-board benefits. Improve company-wide communication, increase employee morale and motivation and share relevant, engaging information with visitors to promote positive company PR.

Allow digital signage to revolutionize how your company communicates.
The results will speak for themselves.

1https://www.atlassian.com/time-wasting-at-work-infographic
2https://www.atlassian.com/time-wasting-at-work-infographic (repeated)
3Northern Sky Resources, 2010 Global Market for Digital Signage 2nd Edition

Industry Weapon, Inc.© 2014 | more@industryweapon.com | 1-877-344-8450 | Industryweapon.com

Ben Johnston
Director of Product Marketing
RMG Networks

I've been reading a bit lately about gamification and thinking about its implications for our Supply Chain, Contact Center and Digital Signage customers. For anyone not familiar with the term, a definition is useful. Gamification guru Yu-kai Chou provides an elegant, no “bs” definition of gamification on his blog:

Gamification is the craft of deriving all the fun and addicting elements found in games and applying them to real-world or productive activities. This is what I call “Human- Focused Design” as opposed to the “Function-Focused Design.” It’s a design process that optimizes for the human in the system, as opposed to pure efficiency of the system.

Gartner predicts that by 2014, more than 70% of Global 2000 organizations would be using gamification in their businesses. “The potential is enormous… [and] gamification could become as important as Facebook, eBay or Amazon,” one Gartner research VP was quoted as saying.

Experts agree, the benefits of gamification in the workplace include increased employee motivation as a result of intrinsic (makes me feel good) or extrinsic (recognition) rewards for changes in behavior and thus increased engagement with work.

While maybe not every business has deployed gamification in their daily operations, look around closely and you will find many examples of gamification in the workplace and in B2C applications. In fact, entire companies (like Badgeville) exist just to help businesses implement game mechanics into their operations.

It's natural to think of digital signage as one medium for communicating and displaying elements of gamification to a workforce. But if the digital signage display is the end node, what's the starting point?

Yu-kai Chou advises that successful gamification design starts with asking the question, "how do I want my employees/players/users to feel?" instead of jumping straight into the game elements.

For supply chain businesses (or any business with internal audiences), managers and leaders should ask themselves the same question; how do I want my workers to feel in order to be most productive and what can I do to influence that?

Internal communications pros tell us that companies with higher employee engagement scores often outperform their competitors and that employees are more positively engaged. It seems obvious, right? Treat your employees right, give them a mission and vision they believe in and support, and they'll be more productive, happier and help the company succeed.  

Certainly a number of techniques exist for improving employee engagement from incentive-based pay to benefits and programs that support a healthy work/life balance. From installing internal social networks like Chatter and Yammer to the gamification of HR initiatives (e.g., handing out pedometers and posting a digital leaderboard to encourage exercise), business leaders are making use of technology to help them implement these techniques.

Digital signage systems will play a key role by publicly displaying the results – the scoreboards.  Digital signage content designers and solution architects who take into account their audience's motivations and goals (and feelings) when implementing game designs will succeed in helping realize the benefits of workplace gamification. And that’s a game we all want to win.

Julie Rasco
Marketing
RMG Networks

Is your business a trendsetter or behind the trend? Digital internal communications is not a fad, but a new reality. Companies today recognize that employees and consumers alike rely on digital communications for their information.

A recent article by Russell Working at ragan.com outlined seven key trends in internal digital content --  

1.  Everyone Can Create Content. In this digital age of mobile devices, virtually anyone can be an amateur photographer or videographer and share content.

2.  Social Sharing = In; Email = Out.  Companies are turning toward internal social networking platforms over email for company messages.

3.  A Virtual Hub for Competitive Intelligence. Internal communications allows users to collect and share information, including keeping tabs on the competition.
    
4.  Using Analytics for Social Content Dissemination. Large companies are using analytics and data visualization software to identity relevant and interesting social media content for their employees and customers.

5.  Employee Education. Employees are being empowered through education so they can easily identify relevant information to share with their social network.

6.  Digital Signage for More Than Live TV. Digital signage in reception and other common corporate areas have moved beyond live TV and now include company messages, stock updates and current weather.

7.  Measuring Matters. Digital communications highlights the need for internal metrics and dashboards to measure company productivity and solicit feedback.

Recognizing these shifts in digital communication is key for companies to effectively communicate with employees and customers. To learn more about how your company can maximize these trends and be more effective with your internal communications, download the Visual Internal Communications market sheet from RMG Networks.